2006 Regular Season: September 2006 Archives

The phone rang at the house and the kids all rushed to the caller ID to see who was calling since each of them was sure that the incoming call was for them. I am not sure how we ever lived without Caller ID since no one in our house ever thinks to just pick up the phone and say hello to see who is on the other line. In this case the display read, “Arizona Diamondbacks”.
“Dad, it’s for you!” I am not sure why they think that if the display says Arizona Diamondbacks it necessarily means that they are calling for me. Having your phone ring and the Caller ID saying it is a Major League Baseball team is probably the closest thing I will ever have to a Bat Phone. I always envision answering the call and having it be manager Bob Melvin or general manager Josh Byrnes on the other end saying they heard about my first pitch and were wondering if I would be available to sign a contract. That never seems to happen but it is always great to dream between the second and third rings. Coming out of my alternative reality, I picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hi, may I speak to Jeff Summers?”
“This is he.”
“Hi Jeff this is the Diamondbacks MVP Rewards department and we have identified that you are one of our most active members and we would like to invite you to an event.”
One of their most active members? I am not sure what to think about that. Does that mean that they see me scanning my card at every game or that I have started to rack up points buying concessions or is this about the 3 jerseys I bought because I had not gotten a new jersey this century? None of these sounds like a good thing. I thought maybe this was one of those profiling things and the next thing I know a mug shot would be shown on the evening news and my neighbor would be saying stuff like, “He seemed fairly normal from October through March but then he got really strange from April through September. He’d be gone 83 nights always at 4:30 returning around 10:30. He may be a serial killer or terrorist for all I know.”
“Wow, thanks!” I said.
“We would like to invite you to the Saturday game against the San Diego Padres as our way of saying thanks. Would you like to go to the game this weekend?”
“Uh, well yeah I had thought maybe I would go to the game.” I was trying to play it cool while all the time I was dancing around like the midget on the Gieco commercial singing, “It’s my birthday, fixed my bumper, it’s my birthday, got new taillights.”
“Great, you and a guest are invited to watch the game from the owner’s suite. I’ll have the tickets at will call for you to pick up and we’ll see you at the game.”

Last night’s game was a debacle as nothing seemed to go right for the Diamondbacks. In what may have been his last start as an Arizona Diamondback, Miguel Batista was rocked lasting only 3 1/3 innings and allowing 7 runs on 8 hits. This was probably not the impression he wanted to leave with the Diamondbacks nor potential suitors for his services in 2007. With the score 7-0 as he left, it was a big hole to try and dig out of. The Diamondbacks players just could not figure out Jake Peavy who threw six innings allowing only 2 runs and 5 hits. In the end the Diamondbacks were on the short end of a 12-4 beating to start the final series of the year. Not everything at last night’s game was negative, there is an excitement building in the air for the final games with the Arizona Diamondbacks for Craig Counsell and Luis Gonzalez. Signs wishing the players well began popping up throughout the ballpark with more to come.

The upcoming four game home series that concludes the 2006 regular season has all the makings of a three-ring circus. It should have something for everyone. It will mark the final games in a Diamondbacks uniform for Luis Gonzalez and probably Craig Counsell. There are rumors swirling that this may be the only season that catcher Johnny Estrada will have with the Diamondbacks and Miguel Batista will be a free-agent meaning he too may not return. The end of the season marks the end of the Rich Dozer era as Diamondbacks president closing another chapter that began when the team was formed in 1995. Sunday’s game will also be the final game the Diamondbacks play wearing purple, turquoise and copper before the team changes to Sedona red, black, and sand next year. This series will also be Brandon Webb’s last game to show the baseball writers why he should be considered the leading candidate for the National League Cy Young and will be the final four games for Orlando Hudson to make a case of why he deserves consideration for a Gold Glove. Sunday’s game will also be the first game that Jerry Colangelo will attend since he was ousted as General Partner meaning there may be fireworks as well. Oh and by the way the San Diego Padres are in town and fighting for a play-off spot in case anyone is interested in that.

After splitting the first two games of the series with the San Francisco Giants, the Diamondbacks find themselves in the same position as they did in the San Diego Padres series and the Los Angeles Dodgers series. That means that the team had to win today to take the series when they should have been playing for a sweep. Each of the games that the Diamondbacks have lost on this road trip was very winnable yet here we sit with a record of 3-5. This is just a microcosm of the way this whole season has gone for the Diamondbacks. They have had numerous opportunities to be in the thick of a play-off run but they just can’t seem to string together a series of wins over a specified time. At first I blamed global warming since that appears to be the scapegoat for all that is wrong in the world but as soon as you start talking about temperatures rising someone always brings up the melting ice caps and the whole in the ozone layer and it’s just hard to get the conversation back onto baseball after that.

Last weekend we received word of an emergency which required our attention. My wife Trina and daughter Mallorie immediately got in the car to travel to be with family. Due to scheduling conflicts, I was forced to stay at home with the younger kids. Although the family was separated we remained in contact with each other via cell phone. Over the next few days things subsided and returned back to normal giving Trina and Mallorie an opportunity to spend a few days together away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life at our house. Last evening Trina called to see how things were going and to make sure I had not somehow killed the children by starving them. She seems to believe that I am only capable of feeding the kids ballpark food and since the Diamondbacks are not back in town until Thursday she was worried that they were going hungry. I attempted to explain to her that perhaps what the Diamondbacks needed was for us to fast and pray for better starting pitching and timely hitting but she wasn’t buying into that theory and insisted that I get the kids something to eat besides a bag of peanuts and a bottle of water. She also seemed adamant about making sure that I realized that people did not come in after the game and sweep up peanut shells at home like they did at the ballpark. I was pretty sure I knew that when the shells were still sitting next to my chair from Saturday’s game.

There are some times that for unexplainable reasons a player just has a team’s number. It would be safe to say that Jason Schmidt has had the Diamondbacks number. Since 2002, Schmidt has established an amazing 11-0 record against Arizona while maintaining a 2.93 ERA. It doesn’t matter who the Diamondbacks start against Schmidt the results always seem to be the same. So when Arizona arrived in San Francisco and saw the pitching match-up for tonight’s game was Jason Schmidt against rookie Edgar Gonzalez they had to have a sick feeling in their stomach. Schmidt pitching coupled with the late surge by Barry Bonds is not a good combination if you are a Diamondbacks fan.

The Diamondbacks find themselves in the same position they were in the San Diego series. After losing the first game they came back on a fine pitching performance by Miguel Batista to take game 2 by the score of 9-3. This meant that today’s game would be the deciding factor for this series. The Diamondbacks sent out Livan Hernandez to the mound to face Hong-Chih Kuo whose record for the season is 1-5 with a 4.12 ERA. This match-up definitely would favor the Diamondbacks and would allow them to pick up a game on the Dodgers and help the Padres at the same time. Afternoon games at Dodger Stadium usually means the ball travels a little better so hopefully that would help the Diamondbacks hitters take advantage of Hong-Chih.

As I had discussed in an earlier blog entry titled “How Could They Do This?”, the Arizona Diamondbacks have made the decision to change their color scheme from purple, turquoise, and copper to a new color scheme of Sedona red, black, and sand. This has been a real sore spot with me as I really like the purple and turquoise. It also meant that I would have to go on a major spending spree to replenish my wardrobe when the new merchandise is made available. This has of course led to a major discussion in our house as I began inventorying all of the items that will need to be changed or bought. Trina is even less thrilled than I am especially since I played the “I have not gotten a new jersey this century” three times this season and she just knows that I will have to get a new jersey (or four). So our household definitely falls in the not-in-favor camp for this decision. But I promised to keep an open mind until I actually saw the changes. The Diamondbacks have scheduled an event on November 11, 2006 to unveil their new logo and uniforms so we’ll have to wait and see. With the advent of the Internet, that wait just got a lot shorter.

After a tough loss last night the Diamondbacks don’t catch a break in the opening game against the Dodgers. They face Derek Lowe who has been pitching well and is in the running for the NL Cy Young along with Chris Carpenter of the St. Louis Cardinals and Brandon Webb of the Diamondbacks. Arizona countered tonight with Claudio Vargas who has thrown better of late but still too inconsistent to be counted on from game to game. All signs pointed to another blow out but that is why they play these games on the field instead of on paper. You just never know what to expect.

After splitting the first two games of the series with San Diego the Arizona Diamondbacks desperately needed to take this game if they had any chance of climbing back into the play-off picture. It was already bleak as they had been eliminated from the National League Western Division picture but there was still a small glimmer of hope that the wild card race could become so confusing that somehow the Diamondbacks would find their way stumbling into the post season. The team had the perfect opportunity as Brandon Webb would be on the mound for today’s game. This would be his opportunity to show why he should be considered as a front-runner for the National League Cy Young award and give the Diamondbacks a series win over the Padres.

Tucson has long been associated with minor league baseball. From the modest beginnings in 1915 baseball has been a part of this city. When the Arizona Diamondbacks were formed in 1995 they needed to establish a farm system for each level of play. The organization immediately looked south to Tucson for their AAA affiliate. At the time the Tucson Toros were the affiliate of the Houston Astros but that was about to change as in 1997 the Toros signed a one-year agreement with the Milwaukee Brewers. The stars all converged in 1998 and the Arizona Diamondbacks announced that Tucson would be their new AAA club and the team name would be changed to the Tucson Sidewinders. For the past nine years the Tucson fans have watched as the Diamondbacks best minor league players filled the Sidewinders roster. They had heard about the great farm system that the Diamondbacks had but none of that talent necessarily meant winning. The Sidewinders had not made the play-offs since they established their relationship with the Diamondbacks. The 2006 season would end that drought.

By now it is no secret that the Arizona Diamondbacks are planning to continue their youth movement. The core of the team in 2007 will be substantially younger than they are today. That doesn’t mean that the Diamondbacks have found the fountain of youth but rather that they plan to give their minor league prospects an opportunity to earn a starting position next season. This message was evident when the Diamondbacks front office met with Luis Gonzalez last week to tell the slugger and fan favorite that his work in left field would not be needed next season. The team had opted to use a player 9 years his junior. The message of youth was further driven home later that same day when Craig Counsell was notified that the team would like to have him back but delegated as a back-up coming off the bench. His starting role as shortstop is being given to rookie Stephen Drew making the average age of the Diamondbacks infield being less than 25 years of age. One question the fans are left asking is how far does this youth movement go?

Today marked the last off day the players will have for the remainder of the 2006 season. It’s hard to believe the regular season is nearly over and even harder to believe that the Arizona Diamondbacks are not going to make it to the post season. For some of the players this off day may be welcomed as it gives them an additional day to heal from the small bumps and bruises that occur from a prolonged season. For other players they may be dreading the thoughts of having a day off. During the last off-day both Luis Gonzalez and Craig Counsell met with management only to find that their starting positions with the organization were being given to others basically ending their tenure with the club after this year is over. Given the youth movement that this organization is committing to, any veteran with more than a few years experience could be thinking that they may be next.

Today marked the final game of the series with Colorado Rockies and the last game of this home stand. I am really struggling with the thoughts that there are only four more home games this season. The game today was “family day” and kids 15 years and younger received a coupon for a Tony Clark mini-bat. I still get a little frustrated that the promotions exclude loyal fans such as me from receiving the giveaway. I mean a mini-bat would be awesome and probably much safer in my hands than it would be if you gave it to a four year old child. Of course Trina may argue that point after the Precious Moments Massacre of 2004 where five of her figurines decapitated during a Nerf war in the living room that broke out during the all-star break that season. I don’t think I can be held completely responsible. Granted I was the one who hit said figurines but it wasn’t the Nerf dart that caused them to lose their heads, it was when those little porcelain kids started jumping off the shelves onto the tile floor. And I did try to fix them. It was just unfortunate that their little heads were super glued on backwards. She really should have appreciated it when I suggested that she now owned the only limited edition Precious Moments figures that paid tribute to that girl on the Exorcist movie. But I really digress here as we were talking about mini-bats and today’s game.

It has been quite a week for the Arizona Diamondbacks center fielder Eric Byrnes. Byrnes was brought in this season as a stop gap to man centerfield until rookie Chris Young was ready to make the next step from AAA Tucson to the major leagues. Young had been touted as the eighth best prospect in all of the minor leagues and everyone anticipated that within a year he would be ready to move up. In the mean time Byrnes would platoon with Jeff DaVanon in center. Byrnes has been known throughout his career as being a very emotional player who gives his all on the field. After early success in Oakland Byrnes found himself becoming a journeyman as he moved from the Athletics to Colorado to Baltimore before being released last season. He was in desperate need of a fresh start and the opportunity with Arizona seemed the perfect fit. His level of effort and play far exceeded the expectations of the Diamondbacks and Byrnes found himself having a career year in many offensive categories. Along the way Eric has become a fan favorite at Chase Field.

A three game series with the Colorado Rockies ends the current home stand and marks the second to last series at Chase Field for the 2006 season. When the schedules were announced last winter, Diamondbacks fans had to look at this series as a tune-up to a road trip that would determine the winner of the National League Western Division. The Rockies have struggled in past years and you fully expected them to struggle this season too so this would be a great series before heading out to San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. As the defending league champions you should have anticipated that the Padres would be involved in the race for the pennant and even as late as July you expected that the Diamondbacks would be battling right along with them with the division being decided in the final weekend series at Chase Field. But oh what a difference a couple of weeks make. The Diamondbacks still find themselves battling but this battle is with the Colorado Rockies to see who will end up in the cellar of the National League West.

The Arizona Diamondbacks have the day off today before starting a three game series against the Colorado Rockies on Friday. This late in the season especially with the Diamondbacks out of the play-off picture by all but the slimmest of chances, Bob Melvin has given the team a much needed day off. A lot of the players would spend the time with their families or make arrangements for when the season is over. Not all the players had plans for fun today. Luis Gonzalez had a meeting with Arizona Diamondbacks front office personnel to begin talking about his future with the team. Gonzalez has a $10 million team option for next season and there has been speculation most of the season that the team would decline that option making Luis a free agent. Gonzalez has stated that his desire is to continue to play and that he would like to retire as an Arizona Diamondback. The meeting this morning was called to discuss options and alternatives that would allow Luis to return for the 2007 season.

After the first two years where the Diamondbacks changed the game start times from 7:05 PM to 6:40 PM depending on the month, they had finally settled on all week-day games starting at 6:40 PM. This worked and made the games much more family friendly since you could go to a game and still get home at a decent time to put the kids to bed. The other nicety about the standard start time is that you always know when the game is. If a game starts at 6:40 PM then the gates at Chase Field open at 4:40 PM meaning I need to leave the house at 4:00 PM to get there on time. This helps as I know which freeways and roads I should avoid right before rush hour to downtown Phoenix. So when a game doesn’t follow the standard timeline, it really throws a monkey wrench into things.

On May 27, 1968 Major League Baseball announced that two expansion teams would join the National League in the following year. Those teams would be based in San Diego California and Montreal, Quebec Canada. This would be the first time that MLB would have a franchise located outside of the United States boundaries. The Montreal team ownership group was led by Charles Bronfman who made his fortune in the Seagram’s distilling company which somehow seemed a perfect fit. The team name would be the Montreal Expos which were named after the Expo ’67 world’s fair which also seemed pretty appropriate. From the beginning this franchise had going for it someone who loved alcohol and was named after the world’s biggest carnival and midway. You fully expected to see drunk carnies wandering around the stadium hawking their wares or inviting you in to see the three legged bearded woman with gills who happened to be pitching tonight.

Sometimes events come along to put everything into perspective. This was never more evident than September 11, 2001. At the time the Arizona Diamondbacks were marching towards the play-offs. The team seemed to be peaking at just the right moment and with three weeks left in the season all eyes were focused on continuing winning and getting home field advantage. Everyone was busy making plans for the post season and watching as Bob Brenly began to set his rotation to meet what appeared to be the St. Louis Cardinals in the first round of the play-offs. Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling were dueling each other as much as their opponents. Each player was trying to out do the other every outing. Expectations were high that year even though the Diamondbacks had only been in existence since 1998. All of that changed in one short day.

After the first three games of this four game series with the St. Louis Cardinals the Diamondbacks had taken 2 of 3 losing only the first game of the series. After a masterful game last night by Brandon Webb the Diamondbacks would send Enrique Gonzalez to the mound to face Jeff Suppan. Worst case scenario the Diamondbacks would escape with a split. While that won’t help Arizona’s play-off aspirations it would be respectable. It would be interesting to see how Gonzalez would react after his last start where he was on the losing end of a no-hitter. It would also be interesting to see how St. Louis would react a day after being shut-out and getting only 1 hit themselves.

Sometimes when you look at the schedule you kind of scratch your head and wonder whether you have crossed over into some kind of alternative universe. Tonight was just that kind of time. It wasn’t like I didn’t know this was coming either. About a week ago I noticed a blip on the Bizzaro meter. When I was looking at the promotional schedule I noticed something that stated “Stitch and Pitch”. I assumed that was some kind of orthopedic surgeon appreciation day were we would have doctors attend the game and the players would show their scars of where they had Tommy John or rotator cuff surgery. Boy, was I ever wrong on that assessment. It was much worse than that.

After a horrendous road trip where the Diamondbacks went 1-5 after leading in all but one of the games it was time to come home and hopefully get on the right track. That of course would not be easy as the Diamondbacks began the home stand with a 4 game series against the National League Central Division leading St. Louis Cardinals. This is the second meeting with the Cardinals this season. The two teams played a three game series at Busch Stadium May 12-14. At that time the Cardinals won 2 of 3 taking the first two games of the series. Since that time the Cardinals have seen their fortunes look up being in first place over the Cincinnati Reds. Given the level of play the Diamondbacks have shown lately this series had bad news written all over it.

I’ve heard my parents and grandparents talk about moments in time where they remember exactly where they were and what they were doing. I heard them tell exactly where they were at when John Kennedy was shot or when World War II ended. I never thought there would be an event in my life that would compare to that. Sure I remember where I was the day I got married; my wife would never let me forget that. The same goes for the day each of my children were born. I was told in no uncertain terms that if Trina was going through that much pain I was going to be right next to her I guess so she could smack me at a moment’s notice or something. No I am talking about major life events here and three in particular will forever stand out in my mind.

In the days leading up to the July 31 trade deadline speculation ran ramped that the Arizona Diamondbacks were interested in acquiring Dontrelle Willis from the Florida Marlins. This would have been seen by the Florida fans as yet another classic move by an organization with little class. Willis is only 24 and has three years of Major League service. He has established a name for himself which usually equates to being paid star money. Given the Marlins commitment to having the lowest payroll not only among other MLB teams but I think they are now striving to have a payroll similar to the concession workers at Joe Robbe stadium. Florida would no doubt be looking for low cost high ceiling prospects in exchange for D-Train. Given the depth of the Diamondbacks farm system; they would seem to be a natural fit for just such a transaction. The question is, would you try and make a trade for Dontrelle Willis?

With all the drama of the series in Washington and the first game against Florida I had not had an opportunity to talk about the expanded roster. As September arrived, Major League Baseball rosters expanded from 25 to 40 allowing teams to bring up players who are on the 40-man roster. It’s always interesting to see how teams utilize this to their benefit. In previous years the Diamondbacks have been very conservative in bringing up rookies to fill roster spots. While Buck Showalter was managing the team you could probably count on one hand the number of players from Tucson to make the trip to Phoenix. This year though there is a flurry of activity and names being bantered around who might be called up.

After an absolutely brutal series in Washington, the Diamondbacks continue the road trip to Miami where they will take on the surprisingly scrappy Florida Marlins. The Marlins have the youngest team in baseball yet find themselves with a better record than the Diamondbacks and they are playing much better than Arizona as of late. I contribute this feat to the coaching of Joe Girardi. In his first season has made himself a serious candidate for manager of the year which makes it even more of a mystery why his name keeps being mentioned as being fired at the end of the year. Granted, we are talking about the Florida Marlins front office who dismantled the Montreal franchise before moving their sites to a more sunny location to see what kind of damage they could do to a second franchise.

Looking over the schedule at the beginning of the season, I had penciled in my predictions of wins and losses. As the year has progressed I am surprised to see that I was relatively accurate. The lack of starting pitching coming out of spring training didn’t give me a lot of hope for this season. The early success the Diamondbacks had in May was somewhat of a shock but the June Swoon brought balance back to my estimates. Going into the last month of the season I had expected the Diamondbacks to be 67-66 so they were really only 3 games worse than I had planned. The Washington series according to my calculations was a lock even without the pick up of Livan Hernandez last month. I didn’t expect the Nationals to be much of a force to be reckoned with even when they did have Livan. For seven and a half innings of each game I was looking like a genius. Too bad this isn’t Babe Ruth league baseball where we only played seven innings for a complete game.

I was just getting ready to leave work yesterday when I got a frantic call from Andre. “Have you been listening to the radio?” Well I had been locked in a cubicle for the past 9 hours and I am pretty sure my cube has some sort of force field around it that destroys all radio frequencies since I can barely get my cell phone to work let alone a radio. I told Andre I had not so he began to let me know that there was late breaking news about the Arizona Diamondbacks. Since it was September 1, I figured it would be that the rosters had expanded and some of the players from Tucson were now with the Major League club. Either that or maybe they had pushed Brandon Webb’s start a day to allow him more time in Kentucky. But no, that was not the news being announced. He suggested that I sit down and go to the KTAR web site to find this story.

Venezuela and Caracas have long been known for producing great baseball players. This was evident during the World Baseball Classic this past spring. Though neither of these teams made it to the finals, they had a very strong showing. On August 24 these two countries produced another powerful hitter. Little did any of us imagine that this little guy would impact the Arizona Diamondbacks push to the play-offs. Maybe Josh Byrnes should have checked with the Diamondbacks international scouts to see if Arizona could have signed Ernesto as he could have been the impact player the team has been missing.